This is the third time *Sightings* has gazed at "charitable choice "and "faith-based" ventures. Not necessarily the most urgent topic, it nevertheless can be revealing since people in both parties are on both sides. Some find pro and con arguments in their own minds and outlooks.

The recent revelations regarding the Reverend Jesse Jackson's private life have evoked great sadness and pain. For over forty years, Jackson has been a world-class "public theologian," politician, and opinion leader. He was a close aide to Dr.

No one needs binoculars to do sightings of religion in American public life when a new president comes into view. Presidents signal something of their and the nation's acknowledged needs and chosen images by bringing their clergy along to inaugurations. The choice to take the oath of office on the Bible -- often open to a particular verse -- or to cite the Bible in an inaugural address signal

When "high culture" folks -- the well-educated and the well-off -- knock" organized religion" and "the institutional church," they and the media they favor (and who favor them in turn) do tend to give a free ride to nonmainstream, New, New Age, non-Western expressions and movements.

It's been well over a week since a New York Times Magazine article by Eric Konigsberg portrayed Knicks point guard Charlie Ward as a crypto-anti-Semite. By now the story's details are probably familiar.

*Sightings* has chosen to keep blinders on concerning the overdone, overcovered, overtreated presidential election campaign, full of religious nuances and blatancies though it be. But as Auction Day -- a.k.a. Election Day -- nears, it is time to be responsible. David C. Leege, veteran Notre Dame polltaker and polling-booth watcher, helpfully asks once again, "Is there a religious vote?"